Five of the Best Canadian Poker Players

Canada is a fantastic country that has introduced us to culinary delights such as poutine and maple syrup, but it is also a country that has produced some of the world’s best poker players over the years.

Thousands of players flock to partypoker every week to play poker in Canada, take part in our cash games, grind the biggest Power Series tournaments, and jet off to try and become a partypoker LIVE MILLIONS champion.

We could easily fill the entire partypoker blog with details of talented Canadian poker players, but alas we have narrowed our list down to five amazing Canadians; how many have you played against?

Kristen “Krissyb24” Bicknell

Kristen Bicknell

Our very own Kristen “Krissyb24” Bicknell makes it onto our list simply for being a brilliant Canadian poker player. Bicknell is the highest ranked female poker tournament player, according to the Global Poker Index, in Canada and recently won the Female Player of the Year award for the second consecutive year.

Bicknell is currently the number one ranked Canadian poker player for live tournaments and has an impressive $2,665,006 in winnings from the live arena, including owning two World Series of Poker bracelets. Our heroine is no slouch in the online world either, currently occupying second-place in the Canadian rankings and 39th place in the worldwide standings, thanks in part to her $1.73 million in cashes.

What makes Bicknell’s meteoric rise to super stardom more impressive is the fact she is a cash game grinder by heart, but made the transition to tournament poker, doing so seamlessly. What a talented poker player Bicknell is, a true star.

Mike Watson

Mike “SirWatts” Watson is another Canadian poker player who has been around for more than a decade, quietly going about his business and winning everyone’s chips. Currently sixth in the live poker tournament all-time money listings for Canada, with winnings of $11,277,771, Watson has cashes dating back to 2006.

Watson cashed twice at the 2018 Caribbean Poker Party for a combined prize of $110,000. A 21st place finish in the $25,500 MILLIONS World event netted Watson $90,000 and his 18th place finish in the $10,300 High Roller banked him an additional $20,000.

In the online poker world, Watson has won in excess of $4.1 million, possibly a lot more as high stakes players such as he often neglect to put all their usernames in online tracking sites. He may not play as much as he did a few years ago, but Watson is still a formidable poker player to this very day.

Sam Greenwood

Sam Greenwood is a name familiar to everyone in poker, particularly those who frequent the partypoker LIVE tour.Currently ranked third in the Canadian all-time money listings with $14,711,827 worth of live poker tournament cashes, Toronto’s Greenwood is a phenomenal poker player.

Greenwood has six seven-figure scores to his name, two of which he won at partypoker LIVE events. An outright victory in the 2017 Caribbean Poker Party Main Event netted Greenwood $1,000,000 and he helped himself to the €1,000,000 ($1,227,792) first-place prize in the €50,000 Super High Roller at the 2018 partypoker LIVE Grand Final in Barcelona.

With almost $6.1 million online poker cashes, Greenwood is also a beast at the virtual felt; more than $1.3 million of that impressive total stems from his play at partypoker where he is known as “DeanMalenko”.

Timothy Adams

Timothy Adams, with $10,595,891 in live poker tournament earnings, is seventh in the Canadian all-time money listings. The high roller and super high roller specialists has an incredible 26 cashes worth six-figures, and narrowly missed out on his first seven-figure score when he finished third in a Super High Roller event in Macau for $995,635.

Adams’ online winnings are listed as a shade under $1.85 million, but that only tells part of the story because he only has a couple of online poker sites listed on his PocketFives profile, so we’d hazard at a guess that he has far more. Those are impressive winnings because Adams does seem to prefer live poker tournaments and is a constant figure on the live circuit.

Mike “GoLeafsGoEh” Leah

Mike Leah

Poker can be a game that chews players up and spits them out, so finding one that has withstood the test of time can be a difficult task. One such player is Mike Leah, sometimes better-known as his online moniker “GoLeadsGoEh”.

Leah has live poker tournament cashes dating back to 2006 and has so far amassed live winnings of $7,826,092, enough for eighth-place in the Canadian all-time money listings. Being adapt at several different poker variants is something that sets Leah apart from the opposition; he has major final table appearances in no-limit hold’em, pot-limit Omaha, H.O.R.S.E., Seven Card Stud Hi/Low, short-handed events and bounty tournaments.

Online, Leah will play tournaments ranging from $5.50 up to the biggest buy-ins available; we reckon he just loves the game. Once ranked as highly as 78th in the world by PocketFives.com, Leah has more than $3.35 million in online cashes and is still a force to be reckoned with at the tables.

Which country would you like profiling next? Feel free to reach out to us on our social media channels and we will see what we can do.